


What's It Going to Be? Cause I Can't Pretend

by panchostokes (badwolfrun)



Series: Nick/Greg Ficlets [78]
Category: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode: s05e24-25 Grave Danger, Kissing, Love Confessions, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-18
Updated: 2020-05-18
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:34:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24260659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badwolfrun/pseuds/panchostokes
Summary: Nick reveals a secret to Greg in the hospital immediately after he's rescued from the coffin.
Relationships: Greg Sanders/Nick Stokes
Series: Nick/Greg Ficlets [78]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1257824
Comments: 4
Kudos: 16





	What's It Going to Be? Cause I Can't Pretend

**Author's Note:**

> a scene I've been wanting to write for a while now but never quite knew when, but I was prompted by an anon on tumblr to explain my headcanon for it and this came out of it.
> 
> happy grave danger day eve!

Nick’s fingers ball up the bed sheets, his head snapping back and forth between a cycle green-lit–-no, white-lit–-no, green-lit-–his vision is a rapid strobe light, giving him and robbing him of air through his dry lips. His eyes can’t get any more tightly shut, his teeth clenched so tight they’re grinding, there’s no noise except his own labored breathing…and _whimpering._

_“Nick?”_

The voice is warbled, sent down the pipe to the fan that his head is chasing but can’t seem to face. He kicks his feet at one of the barriers surrounding him, scratching the itching on his legs like a cricket rubbing its legs–the same crickets that are crawling all over him, biting him, bubbling his flesh in large red welts that disfigure him…but no…crickets don’t bite. But fire ants do.

“So…hot…burning…” he seethes.

_“Nick, hey…you’re just…you’re dreaming, just wake up…”_

“Can’t get them off…” he mumbles. His fingers flex out, releasing the blanket, and reaching for the tools he was left with. Something to illuminate his prison. Something to record his last thoughts. Something to end it all. 

He needs to tell him. He needs to tell him how he feels. This is his last chance.

_“Nick–”_

Nick’s trembling hand is sandwiched between two clammy ones, his eyes open and he’s no longer in the box. He’s in the hospital on the last night of his stay, and Greg Sanders is sitting next to him.

“Greg,” he breathes, an identification and affirmation he had returned to reality.

“That’s my name, don’t wear it out,” Greg smiles sheepishly, before ducking and shaking his head. “How, uhm…You okay?”

“Yeah, just…just another nightmare s’all…” Nick waves off. He shifts, sitting up in the bed, only mildly surprised that he can sit up at all. “Where’s Rick?”

“Oh, he just ran to get a bite to eat downstairs, I can go–”

“No,” Nick immediately pulls Greg back down. “Nah, no, man, stay. I’m sure Warrick was itchin’ for a break from me anyway.”

“Been like your own personal bodyguard these last few nights,” Greg smirks. 

“Y’all have. And I appreciate that,” he adds with his eyebrows raised. He cups his other hand over Greg’s hand, a double sandwich of hands between the two men. “Just like…I appreciate _you.”_

Greg’s ears perk up, his eyes widen.

“Well, it’s j-just what friends do, ya know?” he chuckles. “You’d do the same–you did do the same for me, when I was in the hospital after the explosion. Came by and just…sat with me. Even when you didn’t know what was going on.”

“Friends. Yeah,” Nick nods. It’s his turn to duck his head, staring down at the knitted threads of the uncomfortable baby-blue hospital blanket that covered most, but not all of his welt-ridden skin. He suddenly felt ugly, even though he couldn’t see his face, but there was still beauty in the room, a spiky-haired angel sitting next to him. 

“You’re a good friend to me, G,” he sniffles. “I don’t know what I’d do without ya. I did a lot of…thinking down there…And I don’t…I don’t want to…to keep pretending anymore.”

“Pretending what?”

“That we…that we’re…”

“Friends?”

“No!” Nick blurts out, shaking his head, he clears the squeak out of his throat as he further clarifies, “Pretending that _I…_ I’m not…”

He looks up at Greg’s face, clear skinned and looking a little lost, and Nick’s tongue sticks out, washes over his chapped lips, waiting for the moment between his heavy exhale and next sharp inhale before he suddenly lunges forward into Greg’s face. His broken lips smash against Greg’s plump, moist lips. His bumpy nose brushes against’s Greg’s, completely clear but flared in shock. Nick’s jagged forehead rubs up against the smoothness of Greg’s skin. He wedges his hands out of the sandwich and cups them around Greg’s head, and Greg steadies himself on Nick’s shoulders.

It’s messy, it’s slobbery, it’s rushed but it gets the point across. The three words that have been on the tip of his tongue for the six years, a feeling he had tried to bury as deep has he had been, but was propelled out by the explosion that nearly ended his life, the explosion that is being shared between their mouths.

Greg breaks away from the kiss first, gasping for air and Nick’s heart twinges that he had suffocated him so–and then the cracks deepen when Greg says nothing at all, and leaves the room without another word. 


End file.
